Each week I listen to Write-Minded, a podcast of “Weekly Inspiration for Writers.” The episode on January 28, 2019, was “Healing through Writing” featuring Francesca Lia Block. (You can listen to it here: https://podcast.shewrites.com/healing-through-writing/.)

During the episode, one of the hosts commented that everyone has an incident from childhood that results in the “flaws” we must heal as adults. This statement seemed too broad to be true—doesn’t anyone just have a nice childhood that leads to a healthy adulthood? But at the same time, I immediately knew what my incident was.

The Backstory

Let me set the scene: I was shy and still friends only with girls. When I started middle school, school dances appeared. I decided I had no interest in them: I didn’t want to dance with a boy, so what was the point? So while all my friends went, I stayed home. Really, I was just scared of going to a dance, of moving into new territory with boys and who knew what else.

The last dance of sixth grade was on my birthday. I wanted to have a party, but I knew my friends would want to go to the dance. “Why don’t you have a party,” my encouraging friend Kelli said, “and then we’ll all go to the dance together?” That sounded manageable, plus I didn’t want to let her down, so I agreed.

And it turned out dances were fun! There was very little dancing, at least among my crowd of friends. There was a lot of giggling, talking about who was cute, and running to the girls’ bathroom when any boy looked your way. Toward the end of the two hours, a few brave souls ventured out for a “slow dance,” which looked awkward, dull, and not much like actual dancing.

After that, I was in. I was going to the dances from then on.

The Inciting Incident

I remember the boy involved. But he could be a lawyer now, so I will withhold his name. Let’s call him M. It was seventh grade, and I left the cafeteria to buy a ticket for the dance that Friday, from the ticket booth set up in the hallway. I was heading back to my table when he struck.

“Why did you buy a ticket for the dance?” M asked from his seat as I passed.

I knew he was about to be mean, but felt I had to answer. I don’t remember what I mumbled back, maybe “Just to go” or “They’re fun.”

“No one wants to dance with you,” he said, his whole face cringing in disgust.

And he was right, it seemed. No one did ask me to dance. Never mind that no one asked anyone else to dance either, or that I hadn’t wanted to dance, or that slow dancing looked pointless and stupid. No one asking me seemed to prove M right. I didn’t dance with a boy until the end of eighth grade, when Valerie decided she’d had enough of everyone standing by the bleachers and started dragging boys over to us and pairing us off. I remember that boy’s name, too. The song was “Open Arms” by Journey. Slow dancing was just as unpleasant as I’d expected.

The Aftermath

I think of my cross-country bicycle trip as the major event that began my healed life, but probably writing about the trip was what actually did it. The memoir of the trip, Somewhere and Nowhere, explores a few themes, but the general idea is that getting away from the noise and busyness of regular life enabled me to see my patterns more clearly, the first step in overcoming them.

A few scenes come to mind when I remember the middle school dance incident:

• Becoming extremely self-conscious because of the cute barista in the coffee shop in Powell, Wyoming. While writing this scene, and struggling to figure out what “becoming self-conscious” actually meant, I realized all the thoughts I’d had during the moment, such as thinking the barista would be repulsed if he knew I thought he was cute (because I was so romantically repulsive—thanks, M!).
  
• Talking to Ryan at the Jackson Hot Springs in Montana, and how I’d been acting confident, but felt sure that I could never pull off a whole day in his company.
  
• Making up elaborate daydreams about Scott, the ranger on Lolo Pass. I was prone to daydreams because they helped me avoid any real-world actual dating, which was sure to fail because of my flaws.

Writing these scenes helped me realize the negative patterns I had internalized. (One of my early beta readers called Somewhere and Nowhere my “search for Ranger McDreamy,” which made me laugh. But the book has other themes as well, I promise!)

What I’m Writing Now

Since I’ve been writing fiction, I haven’t settled on one genre, but I have identified my mission as a writer: to show characters overcoming beliefs about themselves like the ones I harbored for so long. Even if the story begins with an adult character, it’s helpful to identify the inciting incidents that led to her being the way she is in the story. So maybe I should thank M for giving me such a clear example of how an incident can be internalized, festering for years before it’s exposed and overcome.

A few weeks ago I visited a friend’s “Little Library” and picked up a few romantic-looking books. I wanted to see where they fit in the wide world of romance, as I figure out my own place. The difference between two of the books made me realize how different audiences value different books.

Book 1: Beach Read

The first book I opened was Summer at Oyster Bay by Jenny Hale (Bookouture, 2016). It was a about a young woman returning to her hometown after a breakup, figuring out where she fits in while dating the rich developer who is building/destroying her town. It had lots of description of the setting and interactions with the woman’s family. A typical sample: “Rachel turned back to the bay. Emily followed her line of sight. A speedboat rushed by, agitating the tide, sending it slamming against the shore. The sun was behind the trees now. The sand was cool on Emily’s feet as she took off her shoes and set them beside Rachel’s.” (p. 35)

This book wasn’t really for me. I didn’t relate to the main character’s journey, I didn’t connect with her struggles, and I was not drawn to her personality. I grew tired of all the description. I noticed lots of references to clothing and grooming; I’m not into fashion and such references make me dislike the characters who are noticing such things. The thing is, I don’t think this is a bad book; it’s just not for me.

Book 2: Neurotic Narrator

The second book I opened was The Big Love by Sarah Dunn (Back Bay Books, 2004). It was about a young woman trying to get by after her boyfriend leaves her. She acts out with atypical behaviors and considers how her upbringing led to her current state. A typical sample: “Well, I haven’t figured out what the point is. Another thing I haven’t been able to figure out is whether the religion of my childhood is the source of my neurotic problems or the cure for them. I have figured out a few things, of course, but for the most part, none of them seem to apply.” (p. 23)

I immediately loved this book. The narrator rambles on about her thoughts, emotions, and habits, but I totally got it. I related to her struggle to overcome a pattern in her life, and understood the bad decisions she makes along the way. I liked her snarky attitude, and felt uplifted when she finally got herself together. I could see that some people would find the book unreadable, but it was a perfect fit for me.

The Problem with Goodreads

When I went to Goodreads to review The Big Love, I already knew what I would find, because it happens so often. The book had an overall rating of three-point-something, and the top review was one-star. As I scrolled down through the reviews, they continued to be mostly bad. This used to confuse me, until I realized the order is based on how many people have liked each review. Inevitably, some “clever” one-star review gets a lot of love and ends up on top.

I’ve hesitated to rate books I don’t like because Goodreads doesn’t clarify: am I rating the quality of the book, or how much I liked it?

Many of the site’s reviewers use language that suggests they are rating the former, and also that they are the harbinger of truth about the books they rate and review. And the bad reviews make me sad because authors are people like anyone else. The buffer of the Internet might protect a caustic reviewer from feeling like a jerk, but it doesn’t make reading the biting, nasty criticism any easier on the author. I don’t want to give a low rating and contribute to the negativity.

How to Fix It

The conversation could be framed differently: “Rate this book for your tribe—is it the kind of book you and your fellow readers will enjoy?” This language would clarify that the rating simply means the book isn’t a good fit for a particular audience. That a review isn’t so much about the book as it is about the person who wrote the review. I’d happily give Summer at Oyster Bay three stars, knowing I’m rating how well the book fits me and not the book itself.

My wish is that Goodreads* would order reviews differently for each user. The top reviews I’d see would be those written by readers who have the most “book overlap” with me, based on books we have both read and rated. Seeing those reviews (by my book tribe) would be much more helpful to me than seeing the generic one-star reviews that currently rise to the top.

*Or some other platform. If you know of one, please share!

Since setting up my blog subscription list, emails to the “Thoughts” category subscribers have not been working. Each time I tinker with that email campaign, trying to fix it, I want to test it. So, this post is a test, but to avoid sending subscribers an empty post (assuming my tinkering worked), I thought I’d share some thoughts about NanoWriMo last month.

What Is NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo is the nickname of National Novel Writing Month, which occurs in November. At the website https://nanowrimo.org, writers can register (for free) and commit to writing 50,000 words in November. There’s a handy tracking tool that displays your word count and shows if you’re on track. There are also “write-ins” around the world where writers gather to work, an online forum and pep talks emailed out from successful writers, and a Twitter community where writers share their experience (using #NaNoWriMo, #NaNoCoach, and more) and support each other.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo three times now: In 2014 I wrote my science fiction thriller, The Knowledge Game. In 2016 I wrote a fairytale romance called Rose Fair. And this year I wrote a light-hearted contemporary romance called Kensington.

My NaNoWriMo Experience

This year, for the first time, I outlined the plot and character arcs of my novel in advance. Having an outline made the writing process easier. But I still went through some stages as the weeks passed. From what I’ve read online, these stages are universal among writers. In fact, Week 2 has earned the nickname “the muddy middle.”

Here is a representation of my NaNoWriMo experience using cat GIFs:

October: I outlined my plot and could not wait to get started.

November Week #1: I jumped right in and had no trouble writing. The opening scene seemed fabulous, and then one fabulous scene after another came tumbling out.

November Week #2: After a week, it became hard to write. I had to make myself keep typing, and everything that came out felt boring and terrible. I fell behind.

November Week #3: I’d wake up in the morning thinking, Oh God, I have to write AGAIN? I felt like the time-to-make-the-donuts man from TV when I was a kid. I managed to catch up in my word count, only to fall behind again.

November Week #4: In the home stretch, things eased up. I could see my word count getting closer to 50,000, word by word.

And suddenly I was there!

November 30: Theoretically, I wanted to keep writing. But I was so happy not to have it hanging over me! It was hard to be motivated to do much of anything for a few days.

Writing and Revising

I should add that the point of NaNoWriMo is to get a first draft out—not necessarily a GOOD first draft. It’s okay to leave a note-to-self in the manuscript, like “verify this” or “insert correct furniture style here.” I use an “xx” each place I need to fix, so that I can find them easily using the word processor’s search function.

Many rounds of revision will follow. A first step might be finding places where you “tell” something instead of showing it (e.g., “Jack looked sad” might change to “Jack stared after Aurora, his eyes misty, his smile fading”). You might read your dialogue out loud and make it sound more natural, or remove adjectives and adverbs in favor of better nouns and verbs (e.g., “He walked slowly” might become “He trudged”).

This year, I found myself writing more carefully, trying to avoid some of the mistakes I’d made in the past that led to heavy revisions. The outline helped a lot—while I did incorporate new ideas during November, I didn’t get wildly off track, writing scenes that I’ll just have to cut. I also avoided writing “knowledge dumps” that would take the reader out of the story. Still, I have lots of work to do now, turning the draft into a book.

Last weekend I participated in a Local Author Book Fair at the Orange County Library. The organizer signed me up for a ten-minute slot reading from my work. I picked what I call the “Go Cow” scene of my bicycle journey memoir, Somewhere and Nowhere.

Why I Picked “Go Cow”

Stampede Park in Cody, Wyoming

I set the scene before beginning to read: Mary and I were two-thirds of the way through our cross-country bicycle trip and had stopped in Cody, Wyoming, the “Rodeo Capital of the World.” Of course we had to go to the rodeo. But I had never been to one, and I had some incorrect ideas about what it would be like. I pictured lassos flying and cowboys thundering around the arena, but not the tiny calves skittering across the dirt in terror.

So at first, we were disappointed by the violence and harsh treatment, and there were several rounds of “calf roping” to go before events like racing and bronco riding. But then, a child behind us started calling “Go cow!” We joined her, and cheered when a calf escaped the arena without being roped.

Calf roping at the Cody Nite Rodeo

I usually read this scene because (1) it is free-standing, not entwined with events that happened previously, (2) it doesn’t include too much internal drama, and (3) it’s somewhat funny, and I can use voices. But I also feel a little uncomfortable, thinking the scene doesn’t represent the book accurately, because much of the books *is* about the internal drama, that is, how being on the road helped me see the thought patterns that were keeping me down, so I could start to overcome them.

What Was Different This Time

I pictured this… (photo by Melissa Newkirk on Unsplash)

I describe the theme of the books as, “It is better to live in the present moment.” This theme manifests in many ways: not being stuck in the past, not worrying about the future, not being lost in daydreams. I realized that the Go Cow scene actually has a deeper point, related to this theme. It was my daydream about rodeos that led me to have expectations, and to form misconceptions about what the rodeo would be like, which led to disappointment when the reality didn’t match. I might have still disliked the rodeo, but I wouldn’t have been as disappointed if I had gone in with no expectations, just waiting to see what it was all about

…not this (photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash)

This time when I introduced my memoir, I spent a little longer describing how I wrote it, before setting the scene for my reading. I described how a theme emerged that I wanted to share—the benefit of living in the present moment—and what this theme meant in my life. As I spoke about the theme, I saw audience members nodding along. Seeing that recognition on their faces gave me such a boost. I wanted to connect with people who might benefit from seeing my thought patterns exposed, by recognizing similar patterns in themselves. I felt happy that I had reached someone.

Rethinking My Audience

When Somewhere and Nowhere first came out, I tried to brainstorm as many audiences as I could: people who’d benefit from the theme was on top, but also bicyclists, people interested in traveling cross-country, maybe fans of other introspective travel books like Becoming Odyssa or Wild, or readers of books about outdoor adventure. But I never felt comfortable with all those audiences.

After the talk at the library, though, I thought, the one audience I do feel comfortable trying to reach is the original one: people who might benefit from reading my book, because they struggle with over-thinking and avoiding the present.

Then I started reading This Is Marketing by Seth Godin (Portfolio, 2018). It’s a modern take on marketing, which is no longer about advertising but about solving a problem for your audience. Godin describes finding your audience not as a demographic but as a “psychographic” (p. 28–29), and about the value of marketing to the “smallest viable market” (p. 31), which will ironically lead to growth.

The affirmation from an expert is just what I needed. I want to help solve a problem: people who’d like to be present and happier but struggle to change their mental patterns.
Those people are whom I wrote the book for. I’d be confident marketing it if I described it with that audience in mind. So I have some work to do rewriting my marketing materials!